Allotropes of Sulphur
by Amberdreams
Summary: Coda to 9:23. Dean starts to learn what it means to be the kind of demon that bears the Mark. So does Sam.
1. Chapter 1

**Allotropes of Sulphur**

* * *

**Words**: ~2300

**Rating**: R (just for swearing and dark themes)

**Summary**: Coda to 9:23. Dean starts to learn what it means to be the kind of demon that bears the Mark. So does Sam.

* * *

After the initial shock of finding out that he was not, in fact dead, and then having to revise that to - actually, yes, he was dead but he was still around and kicking - Dean was quick to see the bright side to his situation. The kicking part being a big bonus, for starters. Seeing Crowley turn pale and literally run away when Dean threatened to gut him with the Blade from belly button to sternum – well that was pretty fucking awesome. The boot he landed on Crowley's fleeing butt was an optional extra he was happy to take advantage of.

The whole black eyed thing was disturbing, sure, but somehow not as bothersome as Dean might have expected, had he ever seriously considered becoming a demon again. Old nightmares hadn't re-awoken. The memory of seeing himself in demon form way back when, that had terrified him so badly he'd dreamed about it nightly until he'd sojourned in Hell for real, that memory didn't resurface. He didn't even find himself thinking about the things he'd done under Alastair's tutelage. There were no inappropriate cravings to slice and dice, no uncomfortable desires to hear people scream in pain – well other than Crowley, of course, but that was normal.

In fact, Dean was feeling pretty good for a dead man walking. It was a shame he was having a hard time convincing Sam of the silver lining to this demon cloud.

"At least I'm not dead, huh? Surely that's a good thing, Sammy?"

Sam's frown just grew even more portentous. Dean wished that his new demon-hood came with centuries of wisdom just so he could figure out how Sam did that without even moving his facial muscles.

"Don't call me Sammy." Sam said, and that hurt, where nothing much else had done, since waking up on his memory foam mattress with obsidian-black eyes. It hurt more than the hole in the centre of his chest where that irritating prick, Metatron, had tried to turn Dean into a kebab. Dean was kind of hoping that his demon powers would do something about healing that eventually. It was a bit disturbing being able to stick two fingers into a body cavity that shouldn't be there, let alone the fact that he couldn't even reach the bottom of the hole.

"I'm still me," Dean said, letting the pain show, just a little, but Sam didn't notice. Or worse, didn't care.

"You're a _demon_, Dean," Sam said with utter finality.

"Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious, I had kinda got that memo." Dean gestured towards his eyes with the Blade, then let his hand drop when he saw Sam flinch. Shit. Maybe he should ditch the Blade. Waving around an infamously lethal, foot-long jaw-bone was probably not the best way to get his brother to forget what had happened and welcome him back from the dead (again).

Sam shook his head, then he was turning and walking away, as if he couldn't bear to deal with Dean right now, and Dean was helpless in the face of the unbreachable barrier presented by those broad shoulders. In spite of the feelings of futility, Dean could do nothing but follow, tugged by indestructible strings that were all the stronger for being invisible.

"Sammy…" Dean was pleading. He recognized it but wasn't too proud to hide it. Sam had to know, in spite of everything – hell, because of everything – Sam was still the only thing in Dean's universe that mattered. Dean didn't even notice that the Blade was still firmly in his hand, even though he'd been resolved but seconds ago to ditch it. If Sam had stopped him and asked, Dean would have sworn he'd put the damn thing down on the table and left it there.

Sam lead, and Dean followed, because Dean trusted Sam. So it was a total shock to find Sam had walked him right into the Men of Letters' dungeon. Dean couldn't believe he'd been so naively unobservant as to step over the edge of the Devil's Trap that had so recently held Crowley. He stared at his feet where his boots intersected the lines that now bound him in place, then looked up to see Sam slowly back out of the other side of the circle. His brother's expression was unreadable.

"Sammy…"

"I told you before, don't call me that," Sam's voice hitched, just a little, which gave Dean a sliver of hope, but then Sam turned his back and walked away. The sound of the doors being secured behind him was a death knell of sorts for Dean.

Dean leaned forward until he was pressed against the invisible edges of the trap, not caring that touching the unseen barrier actually fucking hurt, sending dull aches through his limbs like an infected tooth. He pressed his forehead into the pain and tried not to breathe. Surely now he was a demon he didn't need to breathe any more.

0x0x0x0

Sam didn't know where he was going, just that he had to get out of that room, away from the creature that had stolen his brother's face.

The bunker was dark and quiet. No Kevin complaining about the crick in his neck from being bent over the angel tablet for too long. No Castiel stirring the air with invisible wings. No Crowley calling Sam a moose. No Gadreel inside Sam's head, not even Lucifer singing one of those annoying little ditties.

No Dean making his constant annoying noises; belching, chewing too loud, swearing about football or making disparaging remarks about Canadians, singing off-key Zeppelin songs…

There was just Sam and a silence that couldn't be filled by the sound of his own footsteps. His head was as empty as the Bunker, so he just kept walking aimlessly. He really shouldn't have been surprised to find that his route round and about the many rooms and corridors took him back to where he had started. He stood and stared at the closed doors to the dungeon as if waiting for a sign.

0x0x0x0

Dean didn't think he'd fallen asleep, but he must have at least zoned out for a while before the pain brought him back. He hesitated to call it pain, because compared to Hell or even some of the injuries he'd had in the past, this was nothing. More of a vibration, a background hum running through his bones like distant traffic noise on a busy freeway, which once noticed was impossible to ignore.

"Enjoying the accommodation, are you?"

"Fuck! Crowley. How the hell did you get in here?"

Crowley ignored Dean's question in favour of taking a stroll round the perimeter of the devil's trap, just rubbing in the fact of Dean's captivity, the smug son of a bitch.

"Do you know how long you and our dearly beloved Moose kept me locked up in here? No? Too long, that's how long."

"Too many longs in that sentence, man. You've lost me." Dean stood up slow as an old man, wincing internally at the constant ache the devil's trap was sending through his body. Crowley was still talking, so Dean reluctantly tuned back into what the King of Hell was saying.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Crowley asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Every minute I spent in here I thought I was going to come out of my skin. Literally." Crowley grinned and Dean gritted his teeth. "You won't have the same problem, of course. You are firmly anchored into that pretty meat suit, squirrel."

On his feet, Dean kept turning to keep Crowley in view. Slippery fucker. Dean wouldn't trust him as far as he could throw him, and what a stupid phrase that was, when right now Dean didn't know whether being a demon had come with benefits, like super throwing powers and shit. He did know whatever powers he might have weren't going to get him out of this devil's trap though. Which brought him back to his original question. How did Crowley get in?

Dean got his answer almost the moment his thoughts circled back to the question, and it came with an unpleasant price. Crowley stepped forward, seemingly grown careless for a second, and clipped the edge of the devil's trap. Dean had the briefest of moments to note that Crowley's figure wavered and flickered like ghost static at the contact, before the ripple effect hit him. It was like standing inside a giant bell just as it was struck. The dull ache that had been with him since Sam had walked him into the dungeon intensified from a three point five on the decibel scale to a nine point eight. The hole in the centre of his chest felt like Metatron's angel sword was still stuck in there. Dean just managed to suppress a scream, but only by biting the insides of his cheeks until his mouth filled with blood. It tasted of sulphur instead of iron.

By the time the vibrations had died down to their previous, more bearable level, Dean was sweating and his hands were shaking.

"Hurts like buggery, doesn't it?" Crowley's tone was conversational, bordering on amused. He put out a hand as if to touch the trap again, and Dean couldn't help it; he flinched and almost growled when Crowley outright smirked.

"I thought so," Crowley continued, resuming his stroll around Dean's prison like he owned the place. But Dean understood now how Crowley could be here – because the demon King wasn't actually, physically in the room with him at all. What Dean didn't know was how Crowley was managing to project his image into the Bunker. Now that was a trick and a half.

"So you've finally worked it out - I'm not really here. Well done squirrel, the Mark must have given your brain cells a much needed booster shot."

Dean opened his mouth to make some sort of witty retort but Crowley ruined his moment by talking over him.

"It's a shame your IQ was so low to start with though, or you might have worked out how to get yourself out of here by now."

Dean glared at Crowley's simulacrum. Get out of there? What the fuck was he talking about? How was Dean supposed to find a way out of the most heavily warded room within the most heavily warded building in the world? After all, the King of Hell had been imprisoned here all that time and hadn't been able to escape, so… "What makes you think I can get out, when you can't even get back in here to bore me to death?"

Crowley just gave Dean that look that said it was just as well Dean had no children as he was clearly on course for his fifth Darwin Award.

"I don't have the Mark, do I, genius. If I tried to walk out of a key of Solomon like that one, my meat-suit would die and my demon self would disintegrate in the most painful way possible. You, on the other hand, are not a demon possessing a human body – you are a different creature entirely, and these traps aren't designed with something like you in mind."

Now Dean did feel as stupid as Crowley had said, because why hadn't he thought of that earlier?

"Oh, and if you are going to try to escape, better do it soon, before little brother makes up his mind and does what he has to do. You know he's going to end you, don't you?"

Yeah. Dean did know that. He felt it deep in his bones, and it was a worse ache than standing in this trap could ever cause. Sam would have no choice. Dean was a monster now, and who knew what damage he could do let loose in the world with Mark and Blade? Dean himself didn't know, so how could Sam take the risk?

The Dean he was before? That Dean would have stayed and bared his neck to Sam's blade. But that Dean was a martyr and a fool, and it was probably a good thing he was gone. The Dean he had become? That Dean didn't want to die. He didn't know what he did want out of this new existence, but he did know that he needed to be alive to find that out.

Love, self pity, empathy – when Dean examined himself they were all burdens he didn't carry anymore. So why he was still standing in this trap ruminating about his next step as if a conscience was still weighing him down was beyond him. He didn't even notice Crowley had disappeared as he faced the edge of the circle and walked forward. The pain grew to a crescendo of agonies so piercing it was like being back in the Pit, but just when Dean thought he couldn't stand anymore, he was through the barrier and the sensation that swept over him in the wake of the hurt was a distillation of pure pleasure.

Freedom.

Dean twisted the air with a thought and willed himself elsewhere. Atmosphere and time obeyed and he found himself outside a roadside diner, the breeze redolent with the smell of cooking bacon and pie. Perfect. If the pie was as good as it smelled and the service was up to scratch, Dean might even let the diner staff live afterwards.

0x0x0x0

When Sam finally screwed up his courage and opened the dungeon doors, the room was empty. If it wasn't for the lingering scent of sulphur on the air, he would have questioned his own sanity. But no. He wasn't crazy and Dean _had_ been there, and had escaped even though it should have been impossible for him to do so.

Sam walked into the devil's trap, every line of it still intact, and sat down on the floor, his legs suddenly lacking the strength to hold him up.

What was he going to do now?


	2. Chapter 2: Losing my head over you

**Allotropes of Sulphur 2: Losing my head over you**

Sam was hunting him, of course. Dean knew it, but it didn't bother him. It was easy enough to avoid his little brother, so Dean did just that. Sometimes he'd let Sam get real close though. He'd linger in a bar or diner or pool hall until Sam was within earshot – Dean could always hear the low roar of the Impala's engine from at least a block away – before he'd leave, either strolling out of there by mundane, human means, or twisting the fabric of the world to move himself out of Sam's reach. In the first few weeks after he broke out of the Bunker, Dean got a lot of enjoyment out of imagining Sam's frustration at finding Dean gone, over and over again.

Sometimes, Dean would leave Sam gifts - a little something to welcome Sam on his arrival to wherever Dean had just been. It was the least he could do for his brother, knowing that otherwise Sam would be facing yet another wasted trip. He hoped Sam was wearing his FBI suit for tracking Dean, especially for the gift of hearts. Dean had been kind of proud of the hearts. It was a gesture that said a lot, he thought. And besides, Dean liked Sam in a suit. Those jackets always seemed to be straining to cover those broad shoulders, and Sam always stood taller when dressed formally, as if it gave him a confidence that his own more comfortable clothing couldn't manage.

Crowley had turned up once or twice, harassing Dean about Hell and politics – some crap about a power vacuum and taking Dean back with him to help consolidate Crowley's power base – but Dean wasn't interested in joining Crowley's pack and becoming just another Hell Hound. No way was Dean being put on a leash again, not now he'd gotten a taste of how fucking sweet true freedom really was.

When Crowley came the next time, Dean was ready for him.

0x0x0x0

A warehouse rendezvous was unusual. Dean seemed to gravitate towards brighter lights and places with a bit of a buzz to them - that is until Dean passed through, after which most venues were left full of blood and wailing and Sam was heartily sick of being the one left trying to console the trauma victims. His FBI badge was starting to look a little frayed round the edges, though not as frayed as Sam himself. His hair was getting long, even for him, and the only reason he was still shaving was to keep up a semblance of credibility as a G-man. The pony-tail was stretching it as far as he could go and it was only the grimness of his expression that prevented people from questioning him to his face.

Sam knew how he looked. He'd seen it himself, when he caught occasional glimpses of his reflection in shiny surfaces – not in the mirror, never in the mirror. Even while shaving he managed to avoid looking himself in the eye. But he knew from the accidental glances that he looked fucking dangerous, and he could see the fear and wariness in the eyes of the people when he questioned them about his brother.

His brother the demon - who was _possibly_ still here, in this deserted warehouse on the North Shore of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh. Sam entered with caution, not knowing what to expect, or what he wanted to get out of this. He'd been searching for Dean for so long now, he wasn't sure what he was going to do when he finally caught up with him.

The space was cavernous. Even in the dim light that shone through the high up, mostly broken windows from the streetlights outside, Sam could see the place was empty except for the usual detritus of abandoned places. It smelt faintly of gasoline and a chemical residue, maybe sulphur, maybe not, it's hard to say. Chunks of concrete, a twisted, rusted girder, broken packing crates that were never filled or collected. Nothing large enough to conceal even a child, let alone a six-foot plus guy.

Reassured but obscurely disappointed, Sam flicked the switch on his flashlight and played the white beam around the dark corners of the building to confirm his initial assessment. Yeah. Empty. He kept his gun in his hand though. Sam was always wary, always alert.

Sam turned to leave, then paused. Something (as Dean, _his_ Dean, would have said) had gotten his spidey sense tingling. He swung around, moving the light more slowly this time and there it was, over to his right, about a hundred yards away on the concrete floor. An anomaly. A roughly spherical object that didn't look like anything else left behind here. It seemed to glisten a little at the touch of his flashlight, its edges roughened and slightly spiky.

Sam approached the object with care, every nerve tingling. As he got closer, he thought he could hear something, a kind of muffled grunting, and a shiver ran down his spine. Glad his gun was loaded with silver bullets, Sam circled round the thing, the horror of recognition gradually dawning on him as his flashlight illuminated the grotesquery. Wide-open and outraged eyes glittered above what looked like a ball gag, and the roughened spikes were revealed as blood-matted hair. The mumbling he had heard earlier was coming from behind the gag, even though the dark wetness on the ground beneath it told Sam that this was, indeed, a severed head. Crowley's severed head, to be exact. And he was still alive.

Sam swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise up in his throat. There was no sign of the body.

Crowley's grumbling from behind the gag grew louder and more agitated as Sam stood there staring, unable to move. The (presumably now ex) King of Hell waggled his eyebrows up and down frantically and Sam was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to giggle. Because, really, how ridiculous was this? He tucked the gun away down the back of his jeans and placed both hands on his hips, contemplating his options.

"You know what?" he said, his tone conversational. Crowley went quiet, looking up at Sam in anticipation. "I'm so tempted to just leave you here."

Predictably, this remark caused a renewed storm of brow wrinkling and brow furrowing from Crowley, all of which Sam chose to ignore in favour of looking around the warehouse for a suitable container. Because of course Sam couldn't leave Crowley behind in his current state. Now he just needed to decide whether a disembodied demon head was likely to be of any use to him in tracking down and dealing with Dean, because if not, Crowley's impersonation of Bran the Blessed was going to be very short-lived.

Seeing what looked like an intact crate large enough, Sam scooped up the severed head using a piece of dirty burlap he'd found in a dusty corner so he didn't have to touch Crowley's gore covered neck. He'd had to deal with some grisly things in the course of his life but this had to go down as one of the most distasteful tasks ever. He dumped Crowley's wrapped up head into the small packing crate and carried it out to the Impala.

"Thanks a lot, Dean," he said as he placed the crate in the trunk. "Guess we all know what's in the box now, hey?"

**1248**


	3. Here with the stars & the junker cars

**Allotropes of Sulphur 3: Here with the stars and the junker cars**

"If Dean doesn't want to be found, you are never going to find him." Crowley said, smiling. There were flecks of dried blood caught in Crowley's teeth, like red parsley.

Sam glared at the head where it sat on, appropriately enough, a chopping board. They were in the Men of Letters bunker because Sam didn't know what else to do with the King of Hell's severed head. This seemed the safest option, especially as Sam really didn't fancy driving around the USA with any part of Crowley in his trunk, even though he knew Dean had done just that not so long ago. So he'd brought what was left of the demon back to the Bunker, cleaned it up and had eventually removed the ball gag Dean had inserted, probably as a joke. Crowley hadn't found it very amusing, but then Crowley was naturally rather pissed at having been deprived of a body, so Sam guessed the demon's sense of humour was somewhat impaired right now.

Before removing the gag, Sam had examined Crowley's head thoroughly, albeit with some reluctance. Handling the grisly object that Crowley had become was not the most pleasant of experiences, but Sam needed to know why Crowley was still in there. Why hadn't the demon smoked out of the meat-suit the moment Dean had wielded the Blade to separate Crowley's head from his torso? Sam deduced Dean had used the Blade as there were teeth marks in the raggedy edges of the flesh and scratches visible in the remaining vertebrae when Sam used his magnifying glass – _very CSI, Sammy, I thought you hated police procedurals_…

Somehow Dean had trapped Crowley's essence inside the skull, and Sam had to be sure it would stay there. He couldn't have Crowley on the loose again. He had enough to worry about with Dean causing havoc wherever he appeared.

Now Crowley was being obnoxious and annoying, and Sam had had enough.

"I think Dean had the right idea, gagging you." Sam picked up the tomato-red ball and stood up, shaking the leather straps in Crowley's face. He watched with satisfaction as Crowley's smile vanished and he started sputtering.

"No! Wait, I can help you!"

"Really? I doubt that. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't stick this back in your lying mouth, package you up in a nice dark hex box and put you on a shelf in one of these vaults."

"Look, I can't find Dean for you, but I can help you find the one person on this earth who will know where Dean is."

"Okay, I'm listening."

Sam put the gag down on the surface next to the head. Crowley eyed it nervously before continuing.

"Cain's your man. He's borne the Mark, he knows how to find it again. And the Blade calls to him, constantly. Once you wield it, the bone sings to your blood, you can't shake it."

"Fine, so why do I need you? I can go find Cain and persuade him to help me without any assistance from you."

"If Cain doesn't want to be found, you will never track him down. You need a spell, and I'm the only one who can give it to you."

"A spell. Right."

Sam thought, _that figures_. The Dean in his head commented, predictably, _witches, man. Fucking skeevy_.

0x0x0x0

As spells went, this one was mild. The ingredients were mostly common herbs, a sprinkling of powdered beetle carapaces and the obligatory blood. The bowl was balanced on top of one of the beehives in Cain's garden, which didn't seem to be occupied so Sam just hoped this was going to work.

Sam dropped the lit match into the bowl and watched the flames flare up.

For a full sixty seconds or more, nothing happened. It meant Sam had time to run through all the cruel and unusual punishments one could inflict on a disembodied head. Fortunately for Crowley, the moment Sam was ready to leave and reached to collect the bowl, a faint humming set up vibrations through the wooden walls of the hive. Sam stepped back with alacrity. He wouldn't put it past Crowley to have given him a spell that merely made bees angry, just to mess with him.

The queen emerged first, the rest, the workers, swiftly followed. As the mass of bees coalesced into a dark buzzing cloud, Sam hoped this was going work, because chasing a flying swarm over hill and dale wasn't his idea of a good time.

Sam didn't know if it was luck or the power of Crowley's spell, but the swarm didn't take long to reveal Cain's hiding place. It seemed Cain was adept at hiding in plain sight, and hadn't moved far from his Missouri agricultural idyll.

So bee wrangling turned out to be easy. Getting Cain to help him? Now that was the hard part. But Sam had one weapon that could pierce Cain's defences and his anger – the only weapon that could work.

"Dean told me what happened to you, that you said Dean was like you. Please, if you believe that, help me find him. Help me save him, like Collette saved you."

Cain closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he nodded.

"Very well," he said.

0x0x0x0

It was eighty-five degrees and humid in South Dakota. It made Dean's palms sweaty so the wrench kept slipping in his hand as he worked at tightening the bolts on the engine of the cherry-red 1965 Mustang he was restoring. He thought it might have been the one that had belonged to War, back in the day.

Demons were neither emotional nor sentimental so obviously it was neither of those that brought Dean back to Singer Salvage time after time when he was seeking down-time from his new demonic career. Nope. Dean just liked doing the same stuff he'd always liked doing, that's all – such as fixing up old junkers. Nobody had bothered taking over Bobby's old yard when the house had burned down, and then Bobby had died, so there was nobody there to bother Dean when he opened up Bobby's sheds and brought out the old man's tools. His new demonhood was handy though. It meant he didn't have to draw attention to his presence by starting up any of the heavy lifting machinery, he could simply float the wreck he wanted to work on right into the workshop like it was made of polystyrene instead of Detroit steel.

He slid the trolley out from under the chassis and wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his left hand, which was marginally cleaner than his right. He smelled of engine oil and fresh sweat and warm skin, and it was easy to forget he was dead.

It was still too fucking hot, but the sun was kissing the top of the low fence now, and there was just the hope of a night breeze starting up, setting the leaves rustling in the hickory bushes. Dean wiped some of the oil off his hands with a rag that wasn't clean to start with, so it didn't have much effect. He held out one hand and a bottle of beer appeared in it, perfectly chilled, the top already popped. He climbed up onto the hood of the 1970 Buick he'd finished off last time he was here and takes a swig of the cold beer. He belched loudly, then closed his eyes. He told himself it was the perfect end to a perfect day.

A little voice inside his head said – _perfect? Call yourself a demon? You just spent a whole day tinkering with an old car when you could have been out there with your hand inside some squealing human's innards. You could have been creating a whole symphony of pain instead of listening to a V-8 engine being tuned._ Dean ignored it. He was good at ignoring stuff, especially when he had a cold one in his hand. Mind empty, Dean watched as the sky turned to gold and green and finally took on the shades of a deep bruise as the stars began to appear.

He heard the footsteps approaching but kept his eyes closed, feeling the press of the residual heat of the day on his eyelids. He took another mouthful of beer, let it slide down his throat slowly, savouring the flavour of hops. The Buick dipped and its axle creaked with the additional weight as Sam settled in beside him on the hood. Eyes still closed, Dean summoned another beer. Dean felt the warmth of Sam's fingers as he took the bottle off him, and listened as Sam drank, seeing in his mind's eye the stretch of Sam's long throat, imagining how his Adam's apple would be working as he swallowed.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said, and waited for the knife that never came.


End file.
